Apple iTunes DRM-free catalog onlinge this week?
Arstechnica predicts that Apple might be releasing their non-restricted DRM free music catalog at iTunes later this week - perhaps as early as on Tuesday? Apple and record company EMI have been working on a deal to distributed non-protected music via iTunes for quite some time, and the source beleive that an agreement has been reached and the content should be available shortly. This is great news for every iPod user and will most likely shape the whole digital music industry to a better direction of real fair use.
Well, if you’ve been waiting for the DRM-free tracks, you’re in luck, because apparently Apple can and will deliver them by the end of May, according to MacBidouille’s sources. In fact, the entire EMI catalog (except the Beatles) will be offered at the same time, in 256Kbps AAC format, and without FairPlay DRM. Apple’s desire to offer the whole catalog at the same time is given as one of the reasons for the delay, as was the need to spend extra time on some master files before they were encoded at the new bitrate. Supposedly Apple employees are busily encoding and hosting tracks so everything is ready for a launch in a few days.
Source: Arstechnica
